The State Conservatory Junior Program
国立音乐院幼年班

The State Conservatory Junior Program (国立音乐院幼年班) was a classical music training program created under the State Conservatory of Music in Chongqing in 1945. Founder, Professor Wu Po-Tchao (吴伯超, August 23, 1903 – January 27, 1949), a European-trained composer, conductor, and music educator had long been having a dream: to build China’s own national symphony orchestra. The Junior Program aimed at training children at a young age, in order to capture the best window of the flexibility required for developing professional musicians. The first cohort recruited over 100 students, including my father Sheng Mingliang and my uncle Sheng Mingyao.

 

In 1946, the Junior Program was relocated to Changzhou. Professor Wu approached the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra and persuaded Ferdinand Adler and several of his European colleagues to join the faculty of the State Conservatory in Nanjing and to also teach the Junior Program. However, in 1947, as the civil war intensified, Adler and most of the foreign faculty left China. The Junior Program was reduced to individual practicing and ensemble training, under very harsh conditions.

 

On January 27, 1949, as Professor Wu Po-Tchao was traveling to Taiwan to search for a new location for the Junior Program, the ship he was boarded, the Taiping Steamer, collided with a cargo ship and sank. Over 1,500 people, including Professor Wu, perished at sea. In 1950, the Junior Program was merged into the Central Conservatory of Music Youth Program and relocated to Tianjin.